


Our 'Angel' of Static and Bone

by NeverwinterThistle



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Dream Sex, Dubious Consent, Fisting, Kink Discovery, Obsession, Other, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-13 13:06:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14112978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/pseuds/NeverwinterThistle
Summary: Michael has been on his mind a lot of late.





	Our 'Angel' of Static and Bone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cher/gifts).



> Before anyone panics at the combination of "Michael" and "fisting", I _promise_ you it's not what it sounds like. I mean, it is. Just not how you're thinking.
> 
> Also, the biggest thank you to [track_04](https://archiveofourown.org/users/track_04/profile) for the beta reading and endless cheerleading! I’m so grateful for all your help.

“A friend of yours stopped by earlier,” Jon’s neighbour tells him as he fumbles for his key. It’s in his bag somewhere, he’s sure; buried under the mountain of miscellanea that seems to breed every time he blinks. Distracted, he gives a chilly smile.

“Really? Did you get a name?”

“Can’t say I recall,” says the neighbour. Which seems only fair, given that Jon has no idea what hers is either. Still, he feels a spark of irritation. _Georgie_ is never plagued by nosy bystanders who always want to know where she’s going, and harass her for _days_ as to why she seemed to vanish for a while. _Georgie_ never has to fumble up cover stories featuring unexpected research trips and accidents that result in bandages. _Georgie_ never has to worry about any of that. Jon has wondered on several occasions if she’d be open to the idea of just swapping flats. Her place is quiet, considerate, peaceful. His own pays for its excellent location with intrusive outsiders who refuse to leave well enough alone.

“Right,” he says, irritable. Shoving folders aside to try and find the key. “Did this friend leave any…message, something like that?”

“Not really,” she tells him. “He was just sort of hanging around, so I stepped out to ask him what he wanted. Nice young man. Said he was a friend of yours.”

“Uh, yes. You told me that.”

“I told him you were out. He said he’d try again later.”

“Good to know.” The key makes itself known just as Jon is considering emptying the contents of his bag out on the doorstep. He shoves it into the lock.

“Really attractive guy, your friend,” says his neighbour, as the door finally consents to open. “Very interesting-looking. He reminds of one of those angels you get in medieval paintings. Or is it Renaissance? You know what I mean. Tall, blond, long curly hair, round face. I actually asked him if he’d misplaced his halo; he thought that was very funny. Lovely sense of humour. We had a good laugh.”

“I bet,” Jon says blankly. Inwardly, he curses.

“Of course, he’s probably a bit young for _me_ , although these days you never know, do you? People are so much more open-minded.  And now I think about it I’m sure he told me his name. I remember laughing about it, because it suited him so well. Something angelic. Like Gabriel, or Raphael, or…”

“Michael,” Jon says with a sigh. “It’s Michael.”

“So it is,” she says, satisfied. “Well, if he stops by again, I’ll tell him you’re in, shall I? It’s no trouble, he was very good company. You wouldn’t happen to know if he’s single-”

Jon slams the door shut in her face. He leans back against it, dropping his bag down onto the floor.

 _Damn_ , he thinks. _Damn, damn, damn it all. Nikola Orsinov isn’t enough for one week, it has to be Michael as well. Damn. What the hell did it want? Is it working with her? It claimed to be neutral, but Leitner calls it a liar, so I’d best take that with a grain of salt. Who’s to say it might not like the Stranger’s new world?_

His fingers twitch towards the messenger bag abandoned at his feet. To the tape recorder inside; to the direct line he has to Elias, who will certainly want to know about this new development.

And then Elias will refuse to acknowledge hearing any of it. Bypass Jon’s questions, dismiss him before he can push. Elias seems perfectly happy to let him fumble his way through mystery after mystery; his idea of ‘helpful’ involves granting Jon scraps of information after the fact, just to make sure he doesn’t stop feeling inferior.

He leaves the tape recorder where it is and goes to make himself a cup of tea.

*

Michael has been on his mind a lot of late.

The more he thinks about it, the more certain he is that it has saved his life on three occasions. Or perhaps _saved_ is not quite the correct term; _intervened_ might be more suitable. _Assisted, aided, guided_. It showed Sasha the way to defeat Prentiss; warned Jon in turn that Sasha was no longer trustworthy; offered him a door to escape a swift and messy end. A door which very conveniently happened to lead him down to Leitner, with his traps and weaponised books. Three times Jon would have been dead without Michael’s interference. Which is three more times than Elias has bothered to help, and Jon is not blind to the fact that he is racking up quite a debt to the Spiral.

He still can’t work out why. Why help him and not Gertrude?

He hears its laughter in his dreams sometimes. Or rather, he hopes they’re dreams; the alternative is a concept that doesn’t bear thinking about, at least in part because it’s so plausible, and there is nothing he can do to prove it.

Sometimes it laughs. Sometimes it circles him, shark-like, looming, mutant hands hovering over his shoulders and neck. Sometimes it hunts him; chases him through a maze of kaleidoscopic colours, mirrors, electric lights illuminating two shadows; the terrified man and the staticky shade that stalks him.

Sometimes it catches him. And Jon is pinned, flat on his back, staring up at a faceless form with all the bones in its hands, its outline stuttering like the fuzz of an untuned television. He shakes, insensible with fear. He drags his nails down a back that barely exists, that shifts under his fingertips. He arches as it fucks him open with careless brutality, stinging like whiplash, its laughter searing a path through his mind.

He should wake screaming. Somehow, he never does.

Elias will not discuss Michael with him. Leitner gave him little to work with, and Jude Perry didn’t even know what he was referring to. Understandable, if ‘Michael’ goes by different names. This seems likely. Still, Jon finds he doesn’t like the idea that it might have different identities depending on who it deals with.

He doesn’t like to think that the reason he hasn’t seen it of late might be that it has found someone more interesting to laugh at.

*

“You did well with the Newcastle case,” Jon says. At her desk, Melanie raises her eyebrows.

“Wow,” she says. “You sure you’re feeling alright? Not…sick or anything? It’s just, for a moment there it was like you actually praised my work.”

Jon feels his unconvincing smile fade. He’s rather relieved to see the back of it. “I give praise,” he snaps. “When it’s deserved.”

“Take your word for it. Does the praise come with a bonus of any sort?”

“I suggest you take that up with Elias.”

“I’d rather not,” Melanie says. “On account of the fact that he’s a self-confessed murderer who shows no remorse whatsoever as far as I can tell.”

“That’s fair,” Jon mutters. He straightens the folders he’s holding before offering them to her. They didn’t take long to collate; far more time-consuming was the cover sheet he’s attached, a careful summary of the things she might not find within the statements. A warning. He offers them to her. “I have a new case for you. Unrelated to the last, but just as urgent.”

Melanie takes the folders. “Sure. What am I looking at?”

“Statements. Er, #0160204, #0161002, #0150806, #0011206, #376-U and both parts of #0170216.” He rattles the cases off without looking; sees the surprise on Melanie’s face. He’s not sure how to explain to her that he has spent the last week poring over these statements. That their numbers and details have carved themselves into the walls of his mind, like hieroglyphs in a newly excavated pyramid. He takes a breath and pulls himself together. “Watch out for that last one. It showed up in my desk last week and contains a record of…well. Of an old man being beaten to death with a metal pipe. Feel free to skip that bit. It’s the part before that I’m interested in.”

“Right,” Melanie says faintly. She places the folders carefully on her desk, touching as little as possible. “Right, that’s…messed up, but alright.”

“You don’t have to listen to it,” Jon repeats. “I rather wish I hadn’t, myself.”

“I’m not squeamish,” she retorts. “I’ll do my job. I’m just a bit surprised Elias gave you the recording, but. Maybe that’s just what he’s into. Provoking a reaction. Anyway. This…case, it’s not about murder? As in, the murder’s just the icing, but you’re more interested in the cake itself?”

“More like the murder is a bookend on a shelf of relevant materials,” Jon says. “Which is what I’ve given you. I need information on a creature that calls itself ‘Michael’. Anything you can find.”

Melanie runs a finger down the bullet points on the cover sheet. “Jesus, look at this. What’s it about, exactly?”

“Nothing. Just a hunch.”

“A hunch,” she repeats. “Funny, that’s what Georgie and I used to say to each other when we were talking about work things, but not wanting to have our ideas stolen by the competition? Not that she ever would, and I wouldn’t either. But the secrecy was fun, so we’d play with it a little. ‘What’ve you been looking into this week, Georgie?’ ‘Oh, nothing, Mel. Just a hunch.’ That sort of thing.”

“Right,” Jon says blankly. “Er. Good for you.”

“Are you chasing ghosts, Jon?”

“What? No, of course not. That’s far more your line of work, isn’t it?”

“Just asking,” Melanie says. “Because it’s always nice to know if I’m being sent to look for something really dangerous, you know? Something that might start looking right back.”

It’s on the tip of Jon’s tongue to tell her to stop chatting and go do her job. To suggest that he might get Martin on the case instead if she’s not feeling up to it; a strategy guaranteed to produce results, given that the two really don’t seem friendly. He’s not sure why. The number of people in the world that Martin can’t get along with are...single digits, surely. And yet, threatening Martin’s involvement would be enough to make Melanie cave.

He doesn’t. It’s a manipulative strategy, the likes of which Elias would approve. And Jon has to believe he’s better than that. For now.

“I won’t tell you it’s safe,” he says reluctantly. “It’s not. But the, uh, thing you’re looking for is generally benign, at least compared to most of the monsters that pop up around here. I only know of one case where it caused actual physical harm, and that…well. I think it was trying to warn me. To show me what might happen if I got too cocky around creatures with too much power and too few limitations. The scar’s barely visible if you don’t know it’s there.”

“Okay,” Melanie says. “So I’m looking for a monster that’s _generally benign_ , which is to say it’s actually hurt you in the past. Bad enough to scar. Copy that. Anything else?”

“If…it shows up at all, don’t go through any doors. Just. Wait for it to go away.”

Melanie sighs. “This is sounding more and more promising by the second. Right then. And if I _do_ accidentally manage to summon this thing by sticking my nose where it’s not wanted, what then? Take a statement? Take pictures? Video? Probably do that anyway, but was there anything specific you wanted me to do?”

It’s a terrible idea, Jon reflects. One he should know better than to pursue. But he’s already made his decision, and what’s the point of involving Melanie if he isn’t looking for results?

“Yes,” he says. “Er. If it does turn up, tell it…tell it I’d like to talk.”

“You’d like to talk,” Melanie repeats. “Well. That doesn’t sound weird at all. What, did you have a nasty breakup, or- Yes, fine, I’ll do my damn job. Whatever puts the money in the bank. Just don’t come crying to me if your…” she peers pointedly at the cover sheet. “If your _Michael_ doesn’t want to hear what you have to say.”

“Thank you,” Jon says with as much dignity as he can muster. “I appreciate the help.”

*

Jon avoids Artefact Storage on principle. Or paranoia; there is nothing good to be said about his associations with these cold, quiet rooms, their blinding lights, the constant itch on the back of his neck. This place is watched, perhaps more carefully than any other. Which makes it difficult to search.

He has told Elias about meeting Nikola Orsinov. About her request (if it can be called such) for the skin she believes Gertrude stole. In an ideal universe, this would have prompted a flurry of panic, an offer of information or protection for Jon.

Instead, it got him a knowing smile, and a pointed, “Good luck with your search. I’ll be watching.” As if the latter was ever in doubt.

And so here he is. Ostensibly seeking the skin, which almost certainly won’t be anywhere within the Institute building, unless Gertrude decided to store it somewhere painfully obvious, in which case Jon would rather be overly diligent now than dead later.

If he’s honest though, it’s not just the skin he’s looking for.

There must be a cataloguing system identifying which…powers are associated with the objects here, but it certainly doesn’t exist anywhere Jon can find it. No doubt Elias deems him “not yet ready”. There are no finding aids, and all the researchers assigned to the storage rooms are either new or…well. They’re all new. No one seems to last longer than six months down here. Which means none of them are in a position to tell him where the Spiral’s artefacts are kept, assuming he was stupid enough to ask them.

Jon wanders past crates, mostly sealed, several open to the recycled air. Curios and gimmicks and everyday objects cordoned off with lurid yellow-and-black tape. There is a ladder with three rungs missing; a ball of string; a toaster. Dozens of objects that look better suited to museum life, and others that wouldn’t be out of place on the shelves of a hardware store. All of them no doubt terrifying; none of them helpful.

And then he finds the maze.

It sits on top of a row of tables, roped off and signposted. The tiny hedges that form its walls look real enough; the pathways all bend off at right angles. Jon stands over it for several minutes, looking for an exit, a center, a…something. Its paths are littered with debris. Dead insects. Flies, spiders, a solitary dragonfly that flutters its wings, exhausted. Its beats up a breeze that ruffles the tiny hedge, stirs dust up from the grass-strewn flooring, and tousles Jon’s hair.

He looks up. The walls are green and high, stretching far above his head. The narrow path extends beyond and behind him. The storage room is gone.

“Damn,” he says eloquently. “I didn’t actually mean for that to happen. _Damn._ ” There is no apparent entrance, no indication of _how_ he managed to get himself inside the maze at all. No telltale door in the leaves that box him in, brushing his shoulders. Only the maze, the path, and the distant white ceiling, far above.

Jon thinks about the dead insects. The spiders. How long would it take a spider to die here, assuming it was finding plenty of food? Days? Weeks? Months? And, for that matter, what kind of transformation has occurred to bring him here? Has the maze grown to fit him, or has he been shrunk in turn? In which case, how large are the spiders?

 _This_ , he thinks _, was a mistake._

He could start walking. It would of course be pointless, given that he knows there isn’t an exit to be found, and the only place the path leads to is more path. He might also be making himself more difficult to find for any potential rescuers. Assuming time in the maze functions in the same way it does outside of it, which is no guarantee at all. Assuming he can even be found within the maze, and has not instead been transported to some equivalent maze in a completely different dimension, far from the human eye.

Assuming he is permitted to leave at all. Helen Richardson managed to escape the corridors, but Jon has long wondered if that was more because Michael wanted her to. If it gave her an exit, knowing she would make her way to the Institute and give a statement. Share her fear. Feed the eye and then be returned to her personal hell, like a toy briefly loaned, and returned with only a few new scratches in the paintwork.

“Hello?” Jon calls. He doesn’t know which direction to face. He’s no longer sure which way is forward and which is back. It doesn’t seem to matter. “Is anyone here? Can you hear me? I want to speak to…whichever hand is responsible for this particular section of stomach.”

There is no answer. The air is still and slightly stale. The grass at his feet is dusty.

On a whim, Jon reaches out to touch the closest hedge. For a moment, it sinks under his hand. And then there is a stab of pain, of heat, that makes him yank back, cursing.

His scar is burning. On his hand, where five stitches were only barely enough to hold closed the gash he received from Michael. At the time he thought the wound might be part of a game; a capricious act, a little violence to scare him. Now he feels differently. If, as he suspects, Michael has saved his life three times now, he can’t imagine it would hurt him without meaning. The scar itself is a pale thing underneath the mess of melted tissue and dying skin he still keeps bandaged; the price of irritating a wax woman. His lungs still occasionally struggle to gather enough air; that, a gift from the falling man with the lightning scar. Both wounds sustained as a result of Jon growing just a little too cocky. As he did with Michael.

All in all, he’d be a lot better off if he’d recognised its warning sooner, and been more careful. More polite. It was, he is certain, telling him to watch his mouth. In its own way. Not its fault he didn’t listen.

Jon flexes his hand. It aches still; this is standard, after the burning. But this is a different pain, sharper, like the edges of Michael’s fingers. Against his better judgement, Jon presses his bandaged hand back against the hedge. This time, it doesn’t bend. It is warm, solid; slightly sticky.

“I’m not…for you,” Jon tells it. He feels slightly idiotic talking to a hedge. Nothing new there. “I’m marked already. By several things, actually, but I suppose most of them don’t concern you. But the, the _Distortion_ had me first. I think it should take precedence, don’t you?” There is no answer. Jon pushes harder against the hedge, ignoring the way it sticks to his skin. He closes his eyes. “I’m looking for Michael,” he says. “Do you know where I can find it? Can you…pass on a message? I have questions. I want to talk.”

Silence. Jon opens his eyes; he blinks, wincing as the harsh white lights paint blotches across his vision. The storage room is cold and bright. His hand is resting on the edge of the miniature maze. At some point, he has stepped into the roped off area.

He withdraws his hand. It’s faintly sticky; the feeling fades as he steps back over the ropes to safety.

Jon leaves the storage rooms with a splitting headache and no idea of where to look next.

*

He dreams of curving corridors in swirling green and yellow and black. By now, it doesn’t come as a surprise.

Michael is waiting.

“I hear you’ve been looking for me,” it says. “Most people would know better, but I suppose you’re not quite _most people_.” It sits in the middle of the soft black rug, its legs folded like some nightmarish Buddha, its smile too sharp for its face. It is exactly the creature Jon remembers; human-ish, blond and angelic, eyes void of emotion. He’s afraid, of course. He’d expect nothing less.

But he’s also just a little relieved.

“You’ve been gone a while,” he says. It feels odd to talk down to Michael; standing, it looms above him, several inches closer to the sky. Jon doesn’t know how to handle a conversation that doesn’t involve craning his neck. Exposing his throat. He sits down opposite, the carpet sinking underneath him. “Where were you?”

“Around.”

“How nice for you.”

“Yes,” Michael agrees. “It was. Although I have kept something of an eye on you, Archivist, I…wouldn’t want to miss the moment of your unfortunate demise. But I see you’re still among the living. Somehow.”

Jon gives a harsh laugh. “Barely. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve managed to annoy recently. Do you know someone by the name of Nikola Orsinov?”

“It’s such a shame she chose to name herself,” Michael says. “Names are so…restricting. She would have done better without.”

“You have a name.”

“I was _asked_ for a name, I never offered,” Michael counters. “And anyway, it isn’t really _mine_.”

“No,” Jon says. “You took it from someone. And I rather think I know who. I’ve been making a lot of new enemies recently.”

“So I gather.” Michael’s silhouette fuzzes, flickers from view. For a moment it is the monster; the limp, spineless frame and mutated hands, bones protruding like stakes. There is no face. And then there is. The blond man leans back, weight resting on its hands, its legs stretched out in front of it. One of its knees touches Jon’s. It is…insubstantial. Stings like static electricity.

Jon holds in a shiver. He can just about manage Michael’s human form, fake though it is. The monster, though. Flickers alone are enough to jolt his heart to the edge of panic.

He doesn’t pull his knee away. The sting of contact is fading into a pleasant, background buzz. Like the hum of an engine under its skin. And that too is fast becoming distant. Is he adapting? Or is Michael the one making the change, making itself less of a danger to Jon’s human fragility? He’s not sure he wants to ask.

“It’s funny,” he says. “I asked Elias about you. He wasn’t impressed. Said something about you being an irritant, and getting yourself involved out of boredom.”

Michael’s sigh is laced with laughter. “I am often bored,” it says. “Although you do a very good job of keeping things interesting. You have…so little idea of what you’re doing. I enjoy watching you stumble blindly through the darkness.”

“I’m _so_ glad you find me amusing,” Jon says dryly. “It almost makes up for the whole pain and horrible suffering aspect. But, back to Nikola, and the Stranger. The struggle you once mentioned.”

Michael narrows its eyes. “Did I?” it asks. “I really can’t recall.”

“Yes, you damn well did. You were the _first_ one to mention it to me.”

“An accident, I am sure,” Michael says. “Far be it from me to ruin the…fun of discovery. Although I suppose it can’t be much longer now. You’ll understand it all, soon enough.”

“Sooner if you tell me.”

“Yes. That does sound likely.”

Jon refrains from rolling his eyes. He doesn’t quite feel safe enough for it. “Why does Nikola need the skin?” he persists. Pushes, forcing the Archivist’s compulsion into his voice. “What part does it play? And where am I supposed to find it?”

Michael shrugs. The demand rolls off it like water down a windowpane. “You do have a lot of questions, don’t you? I wonder why you think _I_ might have the answers.”

“No one else seems inclined to share them.”

“I admit, I am…no friend to the Stranger,” Michael laughs. “Does that make me a friend to you? An interesting question. One I will ponder as I watch you try and fail to win a battle you can barely comprehend. I can’t imagine you’ll live much longer. That is a shame.”

“I’d probably live longer if I could find the skin,” Jon says. His tone doesn’t convince; Michael’s form flickers, quivers between man and monster, wracked with its mocking laugh.

“Would you?” it asks. “Are you sure? Not that I would…presume to question your convictions. As to the skin, I cannot tell you what I do not know; your predecessor had an inexplicable dislike for me and mine. She did not choose to share her secrets. _You_ are far more…amenable.”

“’Desperate’ is the word you’re looking for,” Jon tells it. “I can’t think of any other reason I’d be here.”

“And yet, you were looking for me. Did you miss me, Archivist? Have I been on your mind?”

“I bet you’d like that,” Jon snaps. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint, but you haven’t been.”

He flinches back as Michael’s laughter sets his eardrums buzzing, rattling the bones in his knee and leg where he has unwisely allowed contact to continue. For the longest moment, he can’t hold onto a single thread of thought. His mind is utterly disoriented.

“You don’t lie very well,” Michael tells him. “Even for an Archivist. That is something you might want to work on; others will not be quite so forgiving.”

It leans forward. Reaches with one impossibly proportioned arm, cupping Jon’s chin between fingers that threaten to split him apart. He holds still. He doesn’t know what else to do. This is not like the dreams he’s grown reluctantly accustomed to; there is no fogged dream logic, no unacknowledged comfort stemming from an understanding that _this is not real_. Michael’s fingers press into his chin. He feels them. Feels their threat, and the panicked flutter of his own heartbeat, the sweat on his palms.

He also feels anger, though mostly at himself. _What the hell were you expecting?_ he wonders. _You invited it in. You…stuck up ‘welcome’ signs and rolled out the red carpet. Of course it showed up on your doorstep._

Mostly, he hates the helplessness. The fear, the weakness. The fact that, for all his purported protections and apparent power, he is so easily reduced to a voice. A stammer. An Archivist who asks the wrong questions and pays for his answers with pain.

“Fine,” he snarls. “Yes, I think about you. Occasionally. When I’m not otherwise occupied with every other monster that wants to claim a chunk of me, for…bragging rights, or whatever it is. I’m _grateful_ that you saved my life. I’d appreciate it if you could help again. But if you’d rather stick to the sidelines while the rest of us fight for the shape of the world, then…fine. I’ll be going. You don’t scare me anywhere near as much as Nikola Orsinov, anyway.”

“Perhaps not,” Michael agrees. “If your dreams are anything to go by, I don’t frighten you nearly as much as I should.”

It knows, of course. Jon isn’t at all surprised; he suspects a part of him was hoping for this. Tempting fate, as it were. Why else would he make such an effort to look for Michael? It has slipped its way into his mind and made itself part of the wallpaper; a shadow, a whisper, a laugh in the silence between heartbeats. He is quietly compromised, in a way the Eye can’t look for.

Those frightful, pointed fingers still cup his chin. Jon yanks his head free; feels his skin split open in several places, hair-thin cuts on his jawline that sting persistently. He ignores them.

“How much of it was you?” he asks quietly. “And how much did I do to myself?”

Michael shrugs, its outline blurring briefly into nothingness. “Hard to say. I am not the watcher, Archivist; it is not in my nature to learn.”

“Then what _is_?”

“I…change,” it tells him. Placid as it beckons with one too-long finger. A very human gesture, and so utterly _wrong_. “I am a thing with no name, no shape, no wants of my own. Or, I was. Until you pinned me down and filed me away, recording my voice and form for your…Archives. I wonder. What am I now?” It waits as Jon eases himself tentatively into its lap. What he hopes is its lap. It seems less stable up close, its human form fizzling in and out of sight, like a sheet billowing in the breeze. Underneath lies the thing that sends jolts of ice through his heart.

Does it have a face? Does it have too many? It flickers; a canvas blank with static, only vaguely humanoid; a conglomerate of empty eyes and teeth the length of his forearm; a man’s features, eyes and nose and mouth, blond and deceptively angelic.

“Don’t hurt me,” he tells it. Though he wonders if there’s any point; he’s not the one in charge here. “You’ve already stabbed me, you’ve left your mark. Once is plenty. No more.”

“Of course not,” Michael says. It has a liar’s smile, in the brief moments when it has a mouth. “No more than you want me to, at least.”

“I don’t-” Jon flinches; in the space between breaths, between blinking, his clothes have decided to vanish. Dream logic, he supposes. Or…magic, interference, whatever it is that Michael does to reshape the world into something it likes better. Doors in walls, laughter in his head; the air is warm against his bare skin.

Underneath him, Michael is a contradiction. It fluctuates, warm and cool, rough as scales and soft as skin, uncanny musculature flexing and folding in on itself as it moves. Jon struggles to focus. Everything he looks at shifts, an almost nauseating roil of inconsistency. The only static parts of it are the hands. And those defy close inspection; one of them touches Jon’s ribcage, fingers finding the edges of his bones. It doesn’t quite cut him. He keeps his breathing shallow.

“Will you help me?” he asks. “If I…If we. Uh. If I keep you in my mind, give you a space there. Will you help me find the skin?”

“I might,” Michael tells him. “If it interests me, I am…open to the idea. I suppose you’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?”

It laughs; the hilarity is not encouraging, any more than the press of its knife-like fingers against Jon’s chest, forcing him off its lap and onto the rug underneath. Its fingertips nick his skin in several places. Jon grits his teeth. Bites back a retort, an argument, a rejection of this deal that already seems unfair. Michael doesn’t work like a person would. He can’t make it do anything.

He’s not even sure he can compel it; in which case, he has nothing on his side. Only his mind, and that is already half Michael’s. Only his body, which is rarely anything more than an afterthought in any decision he makes, and which seems hell-bent on betraying him to make up for being ignored. It responds to Michael’s touch in a way that his mind can’t begin to manage.

 _This is not a good idea_ , Jon thinks. Even as he settles back against the soft black rug, running tentative hands across Michael’s temporary shoulders, its biceps, muscles sinking oddly when subjected to pressure. It crouches over him like a big cat; claws and teeth and hair-thin pupils, and then just the claws.

It only occasionally possesses a face, and Jon isn’t willing to risk it. He sits up just far enough to mouth at its neck. His lips go numb; his tongue tingles, but Michael’s skin has no taste and hardly anything in the way of substance. It laughs at him. Sharp hands on his thighs, tugging his legs further apart, and it laughs until Jon is shaking with it.

“You dreamed of this,” it tells him. Far too cheerful, though Jon makes a grab for its hair and yanks hard. Its dissolves under his hand, reshapes as he lets go. He snarls in frustration.

“I can’t control my own dreams.”

“You could,” Michael counters. “You are the Archivist, it would be within your power. You chose not to. And you continue to choose.”

Its body shifts in and out of focus, at times jagged, at times soft; shards of grey metal to dandelion fluff. A frightening thing. Jon wants it very badly.

He sucks in a sharp breath as it starts to push into him, arching back from an intrusion he can’t identify; no temperature, no blunt, rounded tip, and it stings as it forces him open. He reaches for his own cock. He’s hard already; he can’t remember when that happened. It’s comfortingly normal, this brief sense of lost time, lost moments, lost sensation. He drags a hand up his cock and doesn’t shriek as Michael begins to fill him.

“Is this how you dreamed it?” Michael asks; its tone has a lilt to it, undisguised amusement. “Am I…everything you imagined?”

It is. Right down to the laughter, the sharp stabs of pain along Jon’s side where its fingers are gripping a little too tight, the rivulets of blood running down his ribcage. Right down to whatever impossible appendage it’s fucking him with; the sensations change as often as Michael’s shape, hot and cold, smooth and rippled, at once too much and too little.

It’s far more than he imagined. _Better_ , says a thread of treacherous stray thought. Jon closes his eyes. Tightens a fist around his cock, his other hand clawing up Michael’s back, such as it is. There is nothing to hold on _to_. No spine, no bones, no shoulders to cling to. It sinks and reforms around his fingers, stinging like tiny nettles. Its skin is jarring to touch. His entire nervous system quivers beneath it.

The first time he comes is a shock and a blessing; Michael arches over him, fucks him too deep, too fast, and Jon yells as his body convulses. The aftershocks leave him disoriented. For the longest moment he struggles to remember where he is, who he is, what he is with. Lucidity is slow to return; Michael gives him no time to recover. It is relentless. There is nothing even remotely human in its outline anymore, and its jagged fingers leave their tiny cuts in sporadic patches across Jon’s torso. He barely feels the pain anymore. Only the dizzying lust that seems to build with each unbearable thrust.

It must be tearing him open. Must be ruining him, remaking him into something it likes better than the plain old human form. Jon shudders as it takes him shallowly, short thrusts he reflexively arches into. He thinks he can feel it already beginning to change again inside him. Swelling, lengthening, stretching him open.

He doesn’t think it plans to destroy him. Still, as he comes a second time, aching, his throat closing up around the spasms, Jon wonders if he’d mind. If it should scare him more than it does. If he should know better than to sink his teeth into what passes for its neck and wrap his legs around its non-existent back, drawing it deeper inside him.

 _Yes,_ he thinks. _You should know better._ But he wants it anyway.

Static floods his mind, overriding his senses with its sting. The inside of his skull is a grey-black haze; his throat rubbed raw with screaming. He fades out to the sound of Michael’s laughter, and the wracking shudder that stabs through his body as he comes one time too many.

*

There is a new door in Jon’s flat. It’s a dark yellow, wooden, unassuming in a way that raises his hackles. He glares at it as he stumbles past to the bathroom to peer at himself in the mirror. Turns this way and that, checking his skin.

He’s unmarked. No hair-thin cuts to decorate him, no bruises, no pain. Only the pleasant, lingering hum in his nerves and the base of his spine, and the general ache of overexertion. He’s exhausted. And alive.

“Well, that could have gone worse, I suppose,” he says to his reflection. It has the decency not to respond. There’s not much it could have said to him that he hasn’t already said to himself.

The door is still there when he wakes up some eleven hours later, silently thanking the nearest benevolent deity that Elias believes in the concept of weekends, or at least pretends to. Still, Jon takes his time going about his usual morning routine. The door doesn’t move. It lingers, solid and suggestive, as he storms past it into the shower, and then into the kitchen. It ignores him glaring at it over toast and tea and a newspaper he can’t bring himself to read. It clashes with his wallpaper. Jon resents that heavily.

He does eventually give in, but it takes him half the morning to do so. That probably won’t make much difference to the outcome, but he feels a bit better about it. Tells himself that this is his choice, that he has made it in his own time.

Jon pushes the door open. On the other side, he finds a library.

Or rather, the remains of one. The shelves still stand; some bear scorch marks on their ash-littered surfaces, and some drip wax like stalactites. Some are oddly shaped, lopsided, unbalanced. There are staircases and doors, dozens of rooms extending outwards into corridors or further shelves. Most of them bare. But not all.

Michael is sitting at a wooden table in the middle of the room, flicking through a book. The pages warp under its fingers; paper splitting and reforming, blurred at the edges. There are illustrations Jon can’t make out at a distance. Still, just the briefest glance makes his vision blur. He looks away.

“What is this place?”

Michael gives him an odd smile, at once smug and far too toothy. To his considerable alarm, Jon finds himself inclined to smile back. He suppresses the urge. “Take a guess.”

Jon approaches one of the shelves. It is charred a deep, carcinogenic black, the woodwork crumbling. He doesn’t touch it. Just barely visible at one end are the remnants of a small, bronze plaque.

_DEVASTA-_

“The library of Jurgen Leitner,” he murmurs. “Or what’s left of it. You think Gertrude might have hidden the skin here?”

 Michael chuckles into its book. “I really couldn’t say, I have…little interest in the matter. But it seems as good a start as any.”

“It does,” Jon agrees. “He was working with Gertrude at the end. And this place, it’s…a graveyard. A battle site. Of historic interest, certainly, but I doubt anyone else would put the place to use, given what happened here. Why are there still books?” Not many of them, but he can make out the odd abandoned tome or pamphlet sitting lonely on a damaged shelf. Forgotten. Or unwanted? “Are they weaker? Used up? Not worth the effort of releasing?”

He’s not really looking for an answer, and doesn’t get one; Michael shrugs, its entire body briefly flickering, leaving an afterimage painted on the inside of Jon’s eyelids. It is not a pleasant sight. He doesn’t mind it as much as he should.

“It wouldn’t be out here among the books though,” he says to himself. “Or…maybe it is, but not _here_. Wrong power. I wonder. Stranger or Beholding? But she wouldn’t necessarily want Elias knowing what she was up to, and I imagine whatever specific protection Leitner put on the Stranger’s books might be more effective. Unless there’s some kind of secure vault? Only one way to find out, I suppose. I’ll be sure to stay out of the mazes.”

“No need,” Michael says absently. “Those sections will behave themselves while I am present. The rest…hard to say. There is nothing of _real_ power left here. Only echoes of the former inmates. Shadows on the wall.”

“Chalk outlines at a crime scene,” Jon mutters. “Alright. I’ll start with the Stranger. If you hear me screaming, don’t trouble yourself to move. You’re clearly busy.”

Michael gives a delighted laugh that sends little streams of ash falling from the shelves around the room. Jon can feel it echoing around his skull as he leaves to explore.

The library is a quiet place. Jon thinks his battle site comparison might not be too far off the mark; there is a sense of history to the walls and shelves, to the purple mould sprouting across one damp-stained wall, and the claw-shaped trenches carved into another. Here, the carpet sinks inwards in the middle of the room, tattered and taut as if something came up from underneath and sucked half of it down. Here, the shadows stick wetly to corner and crevice, glistening like petroleum. One room is totally exposed to the elements, the roof caved in by some immense object that forced its way in from the outside. Another is utterly inaccessible, the door cobwebbed closed.

He avoids the maze of corridors that sprouts implausibly from the second floor; Michael’s assurances are one thing, but Michael is a liar.

The Stranger’s rooms are both familiar and anything but. There is a subtle wrongness to the angle of the door; the shelves are not quite wooden, and not quite anything else. The lights are too dim. Too few. Jon’s shadow takes on a malevolent cast where it falls on the carpet at his feet.

He has a torch. Plays it over the empty shelves; they remind him of the ones in his grandmother’s house, just a little. Same size and shape, same colour, same sense of potential. And then he moves the torch and finds that they look nothing alike. He has never seen shelves like these before. He doesn’t know them.

Behind him, a noise. Jon turns.

His torch dies. And all the lights in the room die with it.

“Well,” says the voice of Nikola Orsinov. “Aren’t _you_ a lost little lamb. What are you doing, so far from your little lamb flock?”

“Uh,” Jon says. His throat is suddenly very dry. “I, uh.”

“’Hello’?” Nikola suggests.

“I didn’t- wasn’t expecting to find you here, I- why are you here?”

“Oh, you know,” Nikola says. “The usual. Killing, skinning, wearing. Not necessarily in that order, I do like to change things up every now and then. It keeps them fresh. The skins, I mean. Fresh is so much better than three-day old rubbish. Skin is much stretchier when it’s fresh.”

Jon clears his throat, tries to find the volume that eludes him. Tries to remember where he is. First floor, he thinks, but he got here by coming down a back staircase from the second. In theory, that doesn’t put him very far away from the fire room. Not too far from the yellow door that stayed open after he passed through it; his only means of exit. And not too far from Michael.

He wonders what would happen if he screamed. If it would come. Or if it will take him at his word, take his bad joke as gospel and leave him here to Nikola’s non-existent mercy.

Jon wonders what would happen if it _did_ come. He has spent a lot of time assuming its presence would offer some protection from the Stranger’s servants; assuming it could match them, because it is tall and sharp and frightening. A guardian angel with a halo of static and knives in place of wings. He _assumed_ it would be a match for Nikola. Now he finds he’s not so certain.

“You’re taking an awfully long time with that treasure hunt of yours,” Nikola says. Jon thinks he can see her outline, a humanoid shape in the darkness ahead of him. “If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think you weren’t really trying. You _are_ trying, aren’t you? I’d be very sad if you weren’t. Or rather, I wouldn’t be, but then you’d be dead and I’d have to find someone else to look for me. It all sounds very tiring. I’m quite a busy monster these days. Maybe I’ll give you a bit of a boost, would you like that? I’ll take a little bit of skin so you know I’m serious, and then you’ll be much more motivated to look properly.”

Jon takes a step back. The shadow moves.

And the air between them… _flexes_ , warps like misshapen glass, so that Nikola’s outline bubbles out at the edges. As if he’s looking at her through a veil. As if she’s not actually in the same room at all.

Jon reaches a hand out. His fingers touch a solid, transparent barrier.

“Oh,” he breathes. “You’re not here.”

“Yes, I am,” she informs him tartly. “It’s just that… _here_ doesn’t mean the same thing as it did a few seconds ago. _That’s_ annoying.”

“It’s…” _distorted,_ Jon thinks, pressing his fingertips against what feels like glass. _I thought she was here, and she thought she was here, but it’s not true. Was it ever? Did our minds play tricks on us?_ He removes his hand and steps back.

Beyond the glass, he sees Nikola’s dark silhouette raise its head to look around the room.

“You know, I’m getting really concerned about this interfering behaviour,” she says. “First the flesh-hive, then dear ‘Sasha’, and now this. Favouritism _really_ doesn’t suit you. I like you much better when you stick to feasting on the scraps of other monsters’ carcasses. Are we going to have a problem here?”

There is no response that Jon can hear. Just an odd tapping, artificial, plastic on plastic.

“Alright then,” Nikola says. “Be like that. Just don’t come crying to me when your actions have consequences, will you? And they will have consequences. If you’re not one of the dancers, chances are it’s because we’re _wearing_ you.”

Something touches the glass; Jon jerks back in alarm. He can only barely make out the details, but there is the damp, organic press of skin, of a palm, dried blood caking its lines. It is oddly stretched. Like a rubber glove two sizes too small.

“Made you look,” Nikola says. “Poor little Archivist. Pushed around by nasty bullies with much bigger teeth than you. I _do_ hope you’re still looking for that skin. I’d be so disappointed if you weren’t.”

Jon finds his voice. Some of it. “I…Yes, I, of course I am. Yes. Just, uh, just looking in places Gertrude had connections to.”

“Good for you! But I’m afraid you won’t find anything here. There’s nothing important _here_. Not anymore. You see, we all got out of our boring old cages, and now the zoo is closed and we’re free to kill people! It’s much better this way.”

“I, uh, if you say so.”

“I say a lot of things,” Nikola tells him. The hand on the glass is abruptly withdrawn; it leaves a smear of crusted blood in its wake. “When I can be bothered to borrow a voice box. Which isn’t very often, so you’re really quite special when you think about it. Which is probably why you’re making so many interesting friends. It’s nice to have friends. But still,” and there is a sound like heels tapping on the floor, an artificial click-clack that fades with her voice, “you might want to be a bit more careful. _Some_ friends are a lot more trouble than they’re worth. It’s enough to drive you quite, quite mad.”

Jon stands very still as she fades from sight and hearing. After a while, the lights turn back on. His torch passes over the room; there is no glass, no separation, no lingering sign of Nikola’s presence. Just the unfamiliar shelves in a room he does not know.

He leaves as quickly as he can. Finds the burnt room just around the corner, and the yellow door still standing open, revealing his flat just beyond it.

There is no sign of Michael. Jon steps through the door and slams it closed behind him. He storms into his kitchen. Makes tea with shaking hands and drinks it hot, scalding his tongue and the inside of his throat. When he next looks, the door is gone. There’s no sign it was ever there at all.

*

“Melanie,” Jon says, “how’s that research project going? The one with the, er-”

Melanie looks up from her fortress of folders and library books. “The Spiral?” she offers. “The thing that messes with your mind and drives you absolutely crazy? Yup, definitely done my research there, and I sort of wish I hadn’t, to be honest with you. I bet half the stuff I dug up is false anyway. Or…not relevant anymore. I don’t think it goes in for repeat performances.”

“No, it…no.”

“As for your _Michael_ ,” Melanie says. “Scary stuff. I listened to that poor insomniac’s statement and then couldn’t get to sleep myself. I mean, that’s messed up. Blood and gore and…bones and stuff, I can handle that. If I can film it, or hurt it, that’s fine. But mazes and insomnia, and not being able to trust anything your senses tell you? Christ. Wish you’d passed this one to Martin.”

“I was…” _desperate_ , Jon thinks. Now, as much as he was when he first asked her.

It’s been two weeks since he left Michael in the ruins of Leitner’s library. He hasn’t seen it since.

Even the dreams have stopped. Jon has tried (guiltily, with no small amount of self-reproach) to induce them. He has tried thinking of Michael, playing back the tapes of its conquests and encounters, as if he can summon it by dangling its ghost, carrot-like in front of its nose. He has tried to silence his own inner judgment with one too many glasses of wine before bed, and by skipping a full night’s sleep. In one moment of spectacularly poor judgement, he tries to draw a door onto one of his walls, HB pencil on white wallpaper.

In another moment of perhaps even worse judgement, he stretches out under the sheets and touches himself, runs a rhythmic hand up and down his cock and thinks of static, of a laugh he feels in his teeth, of a limp frame with too many bones in its hands.

But his dreams are hazy and forgettable. Which suggests they were never natural in the first place; this is not a thought Jon lingers on for long. Another time, he might. For the moment, he’s far too busy panicking. Nikola’s threats ring loud in his mind. He’s afraid. And, without Michael’s presence on the edges of his mind, he finds absence. He has a nasty feeling he might be worried about it.

But Melanie is watching him, waiting for an answer. She too looks tired. Jon doesn’t ask why.

“I was just wondering if you’d managed to find anything about Michael,” he says at last. “Anything new.”

“Nope,” Melanie informs him. “Sorry, but it’s not like I’m looking up someone that actually exists, you know? There’s no…address, or family, or friends; there’s just victims. And unless those victims made statements, we don’t even know they exist. I tried hunting down insomnia patients, I tried looking for people that disappeared in the vicinity of mazes. I could spend fifty _years_ interviewing people in mental health institutions trying to work out how many of them met Michael, and how many are just plain crazy.”

“Yes, I take your point,” Jon says. He’s disappointed, but not surprised. Not really. “It’s not a person, it can’t be tracked. I know.”

“You don’t find this ‘Michael’,” Melanie tells him. “But I have a feeling that if you’re not careful, it finds _you_. And I’d personally rather not be found. So, if you don’t mind…” She gathers up the pile of folders, the library books and sheets of notes, and hands them over. Resigned, Jon accepts them.

“Should probably just burn them,” Melanie says. “But I know you’re not going to; I’m the same, once I get really hooked on a case. You couldn’t make me drop it if…if it showed up in India and shot me in the leg.”

“I don’t think Michael’s going to do that, somehow.”

“You know what I mean.”

Jon takes the results of Melanie’s researches back to his desk. He flips through them idly; the notes are threadbare. Empty. There are no clues to be found. The books are musty, dusty and unused; one of them stings his fingers as he touches it. He drops the whole lot behind a stack of documents. They’ll wait for another day, when he isn’t feeling quite so…depressed.

*

“Your friend stopped by again,” says his neighbour. Again, Jon fumbles for his key, fumbles for her name, comes up with neither. “Do you know, I’ve forgotten what he’s called? It’s Biblical, I think. Angelic. Suits him.”

Jon looks up, feels a sudden jolt of something dangerously hopeful. “Michael,” he says. “When was this?”

“Oh, about an hour ago,” she says, and Jon almost drops his bag. His key makes a sudden appearance from a side pocket; he forces it into the lock.

“Did it- _he_ say when he’d be back?”

“It’s fine,” she tells him. “He was so lovely, I didn’t want to turn him away again. Couldn’t help but notice that you keep your spare key tucked under that flowerpot over there, so I went and fetched it for him. He’s waiting for you inside.”

On any other occasion, Jon would have gathered himself enough to shout at her. To ask what the hell she was thinking, letting a stranger into his home, instead of doing something _sane_ like taking a message. At any other time, he would have been furious.

Instead, Jon takes another look at her face. Actually focuses, and sees the dark shadows under her eyes, the slightly glazed expression, a certain inability to meet his gaze. She’s swaying on her feet. She doesn’t seem to notice.

 _Damn_ , he thinks resignedly. _I suppose I’ll be getting a new neighbour in a month or so. They’d better not make noise._

“Thank you,” he says instead. And because apologies are about as useful as offers of help, he also says, “You should probably go and lie down. You look exhausted.”

“Yes, I haven’t been sleeping very well. I keep having dreams about-” he closes the door in her face before she can tell him about the corridors in her dreams. They are, in part, his fault. There is nothing he can do to help her.

Michael is in his living room.

It stretches across his couch, hands folded on its stomach, eyes closed. It is, to all appearances, fast asleep.

 _Or dead,_ Jon thinks, noting the lack of moment in its chest area. _What do I do if it’s dead? Do I call Elias? Breekon and Hope? Both?_

“Michael” he asks tentatively, and is relieved to see its eyes open. “Ah. You’re alive. That’s a good start. Where have you _been_?”

It turns its head to look at him. “I’m sorry, should I have left a message? It’s just, I’ve been very busy of late.” There is an odd clarity to its voice; the edges of its sentences don’t induce stabbing pains in Jon’s skull. Its brief laughter doesn’t hurt at all.

“Something’s wrong,” Jon says. He approaches warily, half expecting a trick. “What do you mean, ‘busy’?”

Michael watches him with empty eyes. “We spoke once of a hand, in relation to a stomach. I suppose you could say that this particular hand has been…severed. A temporary state of things, but not a pleasant one. Still. I am almost enjoying the change.”

“Severed,” Jon says. In a moment of madness, he sits on the couch at its side. It is unnervingly solid. _Real_. Its edges do not blur. “What does that mean?”

“I am _trapped_ , Archivist,” it tells him patiently. “Held in a cell by a jailor I have not yet managed to outwit. I will, of course. In time. Although she believes otherwise.”

“Wait a minute,” Jon says. “I’ve heard something like this before, where- oh. Mike Crew. _Ex Altiora_ , he- he bound a lightning creature to the pages of a book of…well, of a rival power, I suppose. He referred to it as an agent of something called the ‘Twisting Deceit’, which sounds a lot like your Spiral. Is it that sort of thing?”

“It is,” Michael agrees. “Well spotted.”

Jon is almost flattered by the praise. He crushes the feeling before it can take root. “So you’re stuck in a book. But you’re also, apparently, invading my living room. How does that work?”

Michael waves a hand; on the wall across the room, a door appears. It is a pale, splotchy white, the woodwork dull and worm-eaten; beyond it, Jon can just make out the street outside. Everything looks as it should. Road and cars and curtained windows. A cat soaking up the meagre sunshine.

“This is a different form of binding,” Michael tells him. It turns its head to watch the street. There is laughter in its voice, but Jon finds his head clear, unaching, free of its intrusion. “I cannot return to my domain, or to those belonging to…other limbs. Your world is open to me, of course. It always is. But, for the moment, I am…limited.”

The door swings closed, melting back into Jon’s wallpaper. It’s a graceless sight, obtrusive and ugly, utterly unlike the usual subtle disappearances.

“I see,” Jon says. “ _Weakened_ indeed. So how do you get free again?”

Michael shrugs. Its tone is petulant. “A simple matter, if I had the book in my possession. I do not.”

“Where is it?”

“That is the question.”

“Oh, for- honestly,” Jon snaps. “A lost book, a lost bloody skin. Treasure hunting is _not_ in my job description. Did…I assume it was Nikola, when is it ever not. Did _Nikola_ give you any clues as to where this book might be?”

“She did not,” Michael says. “And so the hunt begins.”

“Well,” Jon says. He’s angrier than he should be; he can’t work out who with. “That’s unhelpful. I could have used your assistance again, but if Nikola found it _that_ easy to trap you, I suppose I’d better look elsewhere.”

“Yes,” Michael says amiably. “Best of luck with your searches, Archivist, I…do hope they don’t result in your untimely death.” Its tone suggests that an untimely death might be the best he can hope for, and that he is far more likely to end up with something far worse.

Jon entertains a moment of madness in which he wonders, very briefly, if it might be worth offering to help. Hunting for a book is hardly any different to hunting for a skin, and the latter would be far easier with Michael’s cooperation, however unreliable that might be. Not to mention that he very much does owe the Spiral several favours.

 _No_ , Jon thinks, stubborn. _I mean, yes, it saved my life. If it wants to call that favour in, it can do so. There’s no reason to offer._

“Well,” he says out loud. “Enjoy your wild goose chase, and I’ll…almost certainly not enjoy mine. And if I do happen to stumble on anything useful, I’ll let you know. Somehow.”

“How very thoughtful of you,” Michael says. Jon is almost certain it’s mocking him. He’s equally certain he deserves it.

“You can stay here a while, if you need to,” he says abruptly. He’s horrified to hear the words coming out of his mouth, but it’s far too late to take them back. And anyway, he owes this creature…something. It’s his own damn fault it’s even _here_. “Not forever, but if you wanted somewhere…not safe, but safe _ish_ , then I suppose I could put up with you for a couple of days.”

Michael laughs. The sound is oddly bare, like a house without furnishings. “The protections on this place apply to you alone,” it tells him. “There is no safety here. However. I will consider your offer.” It closes its eyes and grows still. Tentative, Jon reaches out to touch its shoulder. To shake it gently; it doesn’t respond.

After a while, he leaves it there. He doesn’t know what else to do.

*

It’s strange having Michael in the house. Jon finds himself on edge the whole evening, though it doesn’t respond to his comments. He doesn’t know what it is doing, lying still and impossibly real on his couch, but he has a feeling _sleeping_ wouldn’t quite cover it. There is a certain absence to its body. Like an abandoned puppet with no master to manipulate it.

After a while, Jon covers it with a blanket. He leaves a note on the coffee table telling it about the dinner leftovers in the fridge. Then he goes to bed early.

Jon doesn’t sleep. Impossible, when part of him expects to hear distortion in the distance, to see an insubstantial bone-and-static monster standing in the doorway. Hoping for it, even. There is only one thing worse than not knowing where Michael is, and that’s only knowing where _some_ of it is.

On the whole, he thinks he preferred it in his dreams. Then, at least, he had some idea of what to expect. Now he has nothing. Just the knowledge that the monster is in his home, unpredictable and unresponsive. The uncertainty; will Elias know? Will Nikola? Is Michael’s presence a danger he shouldn’t encourage?

Jon stares at the ceiling. “This is ridiculous,” he tells it. “And I’d like to sleep now, if it’s not too much _trouble_.”

It is, apparently, too much trouble. And after far too long spent staring at the ceiling, the wallpaper, the empty doorway into his bedroom, Jon makes a furious sound. Resentful, he shoves a hand under the covers. Fists his cock, flaccid though it is, and attempts to fix his mind to something…acceptably sensual.

Predictably, he ends up on Michael instead.

There’s no longer any point to wondering what it is about the creature that refuses to be forgotten. The terror-stricken thrill, maybe, the challenge of matching it in odd conversations, the constant, prickling sense of danger. As a rule, Jon doesn’t like being laughed at, but Michael’s laugh sets his nerves buzzing on the edge of pain and something else. He’d call it pleasure, except that he likes to think he has more sense.

And still not enough sense to keep it out of his head.

Jon grits his teeth to hold in a groan. The phantom knife-sharp fingers he pictures dancing up his ribcage are a fantasy alone, and his imagination just isn’t good enough. Not after the kaleidoscope unreality of his dreams, the spiralling corridor landscapes and the sting of Michael’s touch.

He kicks the blankets off, yanking a bedside drawer open to find lubricant. Smears it furiously over two of his fingers and resents that this is what he’s come to. An undignified mess of a man, hard for a monster that carves his mind open and laughs at it sinks deep within him. Jon sucks in a sharp breath, two fingers between his legs, pressing against frustratingly resistant muscle. He wills himself to relax. Still, it takes him several seconds before he can coax himself into allowing the breach of his fingers, closing his eyes at the sting.

He’s never been any good at this first part. But he knows himself; he adapts. His fingers slide deeper, the stretch a subtle ache he tolerates as necessary to get to the good part. Slowly, he works himself open.

There is a sound at his bedside. Jon’s eyes fly open; he sees a humanoid shadow and gives a high, horrified yelp that he immediately regrets. His fingers pull free with a slick sound. “Oh- _god_ ,” he stammers. “Jesus Christ, do you _mind_?

Michael sits on the edge of the bed and watches him. There is no discernible expression on its face at all.

Jon considers covering up. Yanking the sheets over himself, or snarling something and going to find a dressing gown. There doesn’t seem to be much point. He can’t make it…un-catch him. He has no idea what it even thinks of the situation. Not that there’s anything to be ashamed of, anyway, what with him being an adult and allowed to do whatever he pleases in his _own damn bedroom_.

And then Michael blinks. “Would you like a hand?” it asks.

Jon is briefly speechless. With rage, with shame, with the force of how badly he’d like to agree.  “Not from _you_ ,” he hisses, when he can.

Michael chuckles; a cruel sound, but its echoes are diminished, barely discernible. It moves without warning. Lunges, shadowed form blurring, stopping inches from Jon’s horrified face. Its fingers hover just above his left eye.

Jon doesn’t dare blink.

And then it drops a hand to his cheek, tracing a line from cheekbone to jaw, and its skin is warm, soft, blunt.

“My…current situation has several unexpected side effects,” Michael informs him. It is far too cheerful, laughing at Jon’s frozen form. “Unfortunate or not; it’s just a matter of perspective. I wonder what yours would be?”

Jon wars with irritation, resentment, lingering fear. Arousal; that, he can’t control. He turns his head and bites down on Michael’s index finger, teeth digging into its knuckle. It doesn’t flinch. He didn’t really expect it to. It is patient, compliant, uncomplaining as his teeth threaten to split its skin open, as he flicks his tongue across the pad of its finger. Confirmation, he tells himself. Reassurance. But Michael doesn’t cut his lips bloody, or split his cheeks in an oozing Glasgow smile.

It presses its finger down on the tip of his tongue. Instinctively, Jon sucks on it. He stops as soon as he realises what he’s doing.

“You refused my earlier offer,” Michael reminds him. “Would you like to reconsider?” It hovers over him, free hand sinking into the pillow by his head. Still physically imposing, even lessened as it is; Jon has never liked larger men. Has always hated that they do to him what Michael is doing now: make him aware that he is weak, less confident, that his instinct is to defer instead of fighting. He thinks about shoving it off him, or trying to. He thinks about seeing just how much force the human jaw can apply to a finger. It might just be worth the consequences. Or perhaps not.

Irritated, he lets Michael’s finger slip from his mouth. “Do I get a choice in this?” he asks. He can hear the petulant note in his voice, the touch of vibrato that often slips into moments of insecurity. Michael must hear it too; it is, after all, an aspect of insanity. It knows what human weakness sounds like.

“There are always choices,” it tells him patiently.

“Yes, but do they change the outcome at all?”

Michael gives a sigh; the sound is almost human. “I will _go_ if you want me to,” it says. “You only have to ask.”

“And if I don’t.”

“Then I will go _when_ you ask me to,” it tells him. “And not before. I am not here to harm you, Archivist. Not today.” Its fingers are back at his mouth, pushing at his lower lip. It has blunt fingernails, as short as Jon’s own; he lets two of them coax their way into his mouth, running his tongue over knuckle and joint, counting phalange and metacarpal. The bones feel right. Just enough, not too many. He sucks on its fingers and feels it settle its weight against him, one of its thighs between his legs

It’s just too easy to plant his feet wider and push up against its thigh, a clumsy, mindless rutting that he would have been ashamed of with any other partner. But Michael won’t care. Michael will laugh and slide its fingers out of Jon’s mouth, slick with saliva.

“I will assume that’s a ‘yes’,” it says. For a moment, Jon struggles to remember what it’s talking about.

“Fine,” he says. And then, as his inner pedant screams warnings at him, “no, wait. Not the _entire_ hand, just-” He’s cut off by Michael’s quivering laughter, and by one stray train of thought that tells him, _yes, but why not? If the offer is there_. He bites down hard on his own lip.

There is something to be said for inviting a monster into his bed; a creature with no understanding of the usual awkward conventions, the undercurrent embarrassment, the fumbling that humans are prone to. All things that Jon despises about sex with others. All things that Michael doesn’t bother with. As he leaves off from rubbing against its thigh, lying back and running a hand up his own cock, Michael already has two fingers pushing into him.

 _It would be polite to start with one,_ Jon thinks, but doesn’t bother saying. Michael won’t care; it mirrors what it saw him do, no doubt assuming he knows his own limits. No doubt unsure of what it’s even _doing_. It touches him with a tentativeness that is sharp contrast to its usual cutting grip; it is uncomfortable with the concept of hands like flesh and not like knives. Jon makes a pleased sound as its fingers press up inside him, right where he wants them.

“Good of you to be helpful for once,” he says.

Petulance crosses Michael’s face, brief and swiftly banished. “I _have_ saved you on several occasions,” it reminds him. “One of those occasions being the reason I am in my current predicament.” It settles itself comfortably between Jon’s legs, leaning on his left thigh. Jon fights down the temptation to knee it in the head. He could; it is, briefly, less dangerous than usual. Blunted, its claws removed, its doorways limited.

But this is a temporary state of things, and Michael seems like a creature with a long memory.

He settles back, closing his eyes, running a slow hand up his cock. Feels Michael move with him. It matches the rhythm he sets. Strange, to be the one in charge here. Jon finds he rather likes the feeling.

“It’s a shame I can’t keep you like this,” he mutters. “You’re far more pleasant company, to start off with.”

“I disagree.”

“Well, you’re wrong.”

Michael’s laugh is high, deceptively good-natured. “It’s always possible, I…make no claims to omniscience. I am always perfectly happy to be proven wrong.”

“I don’t believe that for a second.” Jon inhales sharply as a third finger starts to ease itself into him. Tentative, but unyielding; he winces at the stretch. Three is a bit more than he’s willing to try, usually. Has done in the past, on the rare occasions he fancies pushing the boundaries a bit, but it’s generally not enough value for pain to bother with. Of course, it’s different when someone else is doing the work for him. Better angles, less risk of sprain to his wrist. He breathes slowly, telling himself to relax. Speeding up his hand on his cock, and it works. He feels himself grow pliant.

“You’re very trusting,” Michael observes. It is watching his face with an eerie expression of concentration. As if it is trying to memorise what it sees. All of his subtle winces and silent exhales, how he responds to its touch. Maybe it is. Its hair tickles his inner thigh. “I’m…not sure that’s wise for an Archivist.”

“You’re the one who went and got him- _it_ self trapped by Nikola Orsinov,” Jon retorts. He’s sounding embarrassingly breathy, he notes with annoyance. But then, his current position is hardly ideal for presenting himself as an imposing figure. “I, _argh, slower_ _please_ , I wouldn’t call that wise. It’s made you practically tame. Vulnerable, even.”

Jon feels Michael’s laughter in the way its hair trembles against his kneecap, its fingers quivering wonderfully inside him.

“Am I vulnerable?” it asks with obvious interest. “What an interesting perspective. Given your current position.”

“And a very pleasant one it is too,” Jon says.

He’s startled by how quickly Michael learns; wonders if it has retained some form of command over his mind, despite its weakened state. If it is reading his thoughts, his physical responses, and adjusting to meet them. It has worked out exactly where he likes to be touched, how fast he wants the thrust of its fingers, how to angle them so that he bucks up into its hand. The sting that comes from pushing himself too far, the warning burn that tells him he’s nearing a limit, has faded into irrelevance. He hardly feels it.

Jon is genuinely regretful to find that Michael’s current neutered state is only a temporary affliction. That this is not an encounter they will be repeating, once it is free to roam again, slicing through skin like frail blades of grass with hands sharper than the sharpest of knives. It is…unfairly good with its fingers.

He’s never going to be able to look at it the same way again.

Well. At least it might give him a break from the nightmares.

Michael’s fingers flex inside him, spreading just enough to verge into discomfort. A bite of pain. Jon groans.

“I’ll be feeling that in the morning,” he tells it, reproachful. “Do you mind? Some of us would prefer not to have to explain to Elias why we’re avoiding sitting down for the day.”

“That would be unfortunate,” Michael agrees. It is grinning. An uncanny, un…right expression, from a creature that doesn’t do it very often. Doesn’t have to. Its true form lacks a face to practice with. “I wonder what he’d say to you? You are…consorting with an enemy of his, after all, and making no effort whatsoever to record the encounter. That’s _very_ unwise. Who knows what I might do to you, here with no one to know?”

“Nothing, you’re weakened-”

“But then, weak is not powerless, is it?”

Michael pulls its fingers back to the second knuckle, flexing them around the clench of Jon’s hole. The tip of its fourth finger presses at his rim, a touch loaded with intent. Jon is struck by a flicker of uncertainty. A frisson of fear. And Michael laughs.

“I felt that,” it tells him, delighted. “Are you afraid of me, Archivist? Like this, in my blood-and-bone costume, chained as I am? I am…weakened. What are you afraid of?”

“I have limits,” he stammers. A garbled protest, cut off as the tip of Michael’s finger starts to slide in with the rest, and he sucks in desperate gulps of air.

“Perhaps,” Michael says agreeably. “Do you know what they are?”

“I- I, I don’t, I can’t,” but it’s very much looking as if he can. He’s breached faster than he can deny it, his own body proving him a liar as it stretches painfully to allow for Michael’s intrusion. Jon breathes rapidly. He’s dizzy, his cock hot and heavy against his stomach, leaking clear fluid across his abdomen. He aches. He’s horrified by how much he likes it.

 _Michael’s doing something to you_ , he tells himself. _It’s lying about being helpless, it’s in your head, it’s…twisting you, this isn’t right_. He doesn’t believe it for a second.

Michael’s fingers thrust carefully into him, all four pressing firm against his insides. There is a caution about them, a hesitance that betrays how unaccustomed Michael is to even having human fingers. It is, in many ways, as lost as Jon. The only difference seems to be its willingness to adjust.

Jon closes his eyes, bites down on his lip and tries to let the tension slip away. To coax his muscles into submission, to move when he is moved. He feels the fingers slip deeper as his body begins to accept that this is happening. And the pain isn’t as bad as expected; he runs a hand over his own cock, riding the jolt of pleasure it gives him. Pushing gingerly back into Michael’s fingers, the white hot shocks they apply to his nerve endings.

He has a nasty feeling he’s going to suffer for this in the long term. Curiosity, a compulsive need to test limits, to push until he breaks through or is broken in turn; these are the reasons he was chosen as Archivist. They are not traits he can switch off at will. And they extend to himself. Now he knows his own boundaries are not so clearly drawn in the sand. He can bend beyond expectation. He can take it. And now he’s not sure he’ll settle for less.

“No more,” he mutters through numb lips. He’s not sure if he’s pleading or commanding. He can’t tell. “That’s…that’s definitely the limit, no more.”

“And you call _me_ the liar.” Michael’s fingers withdraw just far enough for Jon to take a full breath, to clench down the sudden absence of pressure, the ache that remains.

“Don’t you dare,” Jon says. He catches the white of Michael’s teeth, the mad grin that sits uneasy on a face unaccustomed to existing. “Don’t you _bloody dare_ , I’ll-”

“There’s…not very much you can do, is there?” Michael says. “Don’t let that discourage you, of course. Empty threats are always very entertaining.” The tip of its thumb nudges at his entrance, slick and cold. It rubs on overstretched muscle; an attempt at soothing him, Jon would have assumed, were it anyone else. But it’s Michael.

Jon claws at the sheets as the thumb begins to push inside him, as Michael’s fingers flex to give it space. He doesn’t recognise the sounds that are coming from his throat. Sweat is starting to pool on his chest, his hands, his thighs; he tastes blood. His teeth have worn through the skin of his lower lip.

His cock is still a solid weight on his abdomen, though he hasn’t touched it in several minutes. He thinks he can feel it twitch as he is coaxed slowly, relentlessly open, his muscles forced to yield. There are tears on his face.

“I can’t,” he whispers. Moans, a broken sound, as agony vies with arousal. He can’t possibly manage more, he tells himself. He’s still human, whatever Elias might think, or at least human enough to possess human limits. He can’t manage more. Can’t want more. And there is no reason on earth for him to wonder if he shouldn’t try it anyway. He reaches for his cock.

Michael’s thumb slides in to the last knuckle, catching on the edge of his hole. Jon makes a startled, pained sound, a shriek of denial, and of wanting. And then it pushes further.

Jon bucks helplessly, a desperate hand on his cock, his vision starting to blur. “No,” he says. “No, no, _no,_ oh _god_ , stop-” _That’s a hand,_ he thinks hysterically. _Dear god in heaven, that’s its hand. Exactly what it offered in the first place, and I didn’t believe it, and now it has a hand inside me._

Michael is laughing. “Archivist?” it says; a question and a taunt and a reminder, and it is twisting its hand inside of him. Jon gives a broken, giddy shout. He comes in ragged spurts across his stomach.

It’s half a minute before he comes back to himself, realigns mind and body and reassures himself that both are functional. Michael is patient. It waits until Jon’s vision is clear and focused before slowly beginning to withdraw its hand.

Jon makes soft, ragged noises as the stretch becomes briefly unbearable. He is aware of Michael’s eyes on his face. The grin, the hunger, the unabashed inhumanity on a face it only rarely possesses. Even trapped, it is monstrous. And it doesn’t let him forget.

At last, they separate. Jon lies limp against the bedcovers.

“That was an experience,” Michael tells him. Its voice is a-quiver with laughter. “Wouldn’t you say?”

Jon can’t laugh with it. He hurts too much. “Never again,” he croaks, and wonders if it sounds even slightly convincing to either of them.

Fondly, Michael pats his thigh. “Of course not,” it says. Its voice has a liar’s lilt.

*

“I’ll help you find your book,” Jon says. He stretches out on his side under the covers; next to him, Michael is working its way through a pile of books from his shelves. Its fingers slip on the pages. But it is learning. And, apparently, it doesn’t sleep. Jon on the other hand has given up trying. There’s not much point with the bedside lamp on and a monster at his side, amusing itself with his admittedly dry taste in non-fiction.

It looks at him. Tilts its head. Its eyes are still unnervingly blank; they don’t catch the light like they should. “If you want to,” it says. “I doubt your assistance will make much of a difference to the outcome, but you never know.”

“You’re _welcome_.”

“Hmm.”

“Shouldn’t you be out looking for it?” Jon asks. “You can’t possibly be that interested in the life of Henry VIII.”

“No,” Michael agrees. “Not especially. I will leave when the sun rises and you depart for the safety of your own domain. Until then, here I stay.”

“Why?”

“You are terribly good company, Archivist,” it tells him, and Jon gives a reluctant laugh.

“Fine,” he says. “Be that way. I suppose I could compel you to tell the truth, but I really don’t have the energy for it. And, frankly, everything you say is suspect.”

“That is unkind,” Michael tells him in a tone that suggests it couldn’t care less. “If I had feelings, I imagine they would be hurt.”

“You don’t have feelings.”

“No,” it says cheerfully. “That would be very uncomfortable.”

As ever, Jon can’t shake the sense that Michael is laughing at a joke it doesn’t plan to share at him. Irritating, but not as much as it usually is. Jon finds he can’t muster enough energy to snap at it. If nothing else, it has apparently chosen to stay with him until it deems him safe to leave. Or it might just be weaker than it wants him to know. Maybe it needs a safe house. Maybe he’s the one protecting _it_.

 _We make poor guardian angels, the both of us,_ Jon thinks wryly.

He tugs the covers up to his eyes, blocking out the lamplight. “Wake me up if something shows up to kill or otherwise inconvenience me,” he says, muffled. “Otherwise, I don’t care what you do.”

“Good night, Archivist.”

When he sleeps, it’s to the sound of pages being flicked through by fingers unfamiliar with the concept. That should frighten him.

It doesn’t.


End file.
